Silicon Beach Report April 9: Coozie Launches, Backed by Science

Pearl Abyss Corp., developer of mobile role-playing game “Black Desert” reports its game has crossed the $1 billion gross sales threshold. Pearl Abyss established a West Coast headquarters and e-sports arena for its “Black Desert Online” game in Manhattan Beach in December. VentureBeat reports the game developer is currently hiring for live operations roles in the Manhattan Beach office.

Santa Monica-based outdoor gear rental service Coozie announced its company launch today, backed by Santa Monica-based accelerator and investor Science Inc. The startup offers various “sustainable outdoor recreation” equipment to anyone in the continental U.S. and reports it charges roughly 15 percent of the retail price.

After nearly a year of promises, Snap Inc. released its redesigned Android version of the Snapchat application. The company faced backlash after an initial redesign of the app left users confused by the clumsy interface, which sparked a marked decline in users. The Verge reports the latest version of the app is designed to account for the Android universe’s breadth of varying hardware, meaning that different phones can have “widely differing capabilities.”

Tech reporter Samson Amore can be reached at samore@labusinessjournal.com or (323) 556-8335. Follow him on Twitter @samsonamore.